


Heir of Tragedy

by Prince_of_Leaves



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Someone wrap them up in furs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 03:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3554693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prince_of_Leaves/pseuds/Prince_of_Leaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theon muses. Jeyne stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Theon needs to remember his name, but it doesn’t seem to have any words which rhyme with it. That’s how he remembers everything these days, with words that bind together. Theon, only five letters, solemn and subdued, the way he is now. He used to like the way the girls would sing it, a pause between the The and On, with winks and teasing smiles.

He thought it was because they liked him. He was heir to the Iron Isles, with a fine bow and arrow, riding his regal hourse Smiler. It wasn’t true. They were only mocking him. He wasn’t a high-born lord to them, he was only someone the Starks had taken in, an amusing charity. Theon, flirt with him, but never marry him.

Now, only men spit his name out. They make it sharp and harsh, corrupt it with ‘turncloak’ at the end. He knows it is the title he has given himself, and he deserves their scorn and ridicule, but it stings. They don’t know the Theon who was and they will not give the new Theon a chance.

And they are right. He should be dead.

The trees whisper his name. ‘Theon, Theon,’ the words falling off the leaves, cracked and cold, bloody as his deeds. It is an eerie sound. Underneath, it is steel, an edge of hate, but he also hears the familiarity in it, the veins of history. Wolf howls curling around the word. He is Theon, left alone, and he doesn’t know where’s home.

His name was stripped from him. Since he’s gotten it back, he decides he likes it. He is grateful for it. He can keep it and no one will take it away from him again. It’s all he’s got left.

Maybe he’s also got Jeyne. She says his name, young and lilting, timid and innocent. It makes him remember good things, a long time ago. Robb. Archery. Valour. Smiler. He would never hurt Bran or Rickon. They had to believe that of him.

'Theon,’ she’ll murmur, as if she’s holding onto it, as if its her only salvation. She doesn’t know that perhaps she’s his. She still thinks she’s caught up in a life marred with transgression and torture. Sometimes, she clutches his elbow, until he pulls her fingers away, one by one, marvelling at them. Their just supposed to be fingers, but their not anymore. His are missing, as if they’ve run away and deserted him too. His hands are suffering and submission, ghost fingers itching at him of who he used to be.

He hasn’t picked up a bow and arrow yet. He’s so afraid he’ll never be Theon the Archer anymore, except to have monikers of shame between his surname and name.

‘Theon,’ Jeyne sniffles, as if it’s the only word she knows. Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with insane, because why else would she want to be with him? There’s no logical reason for it, but maybe he should leave logic for fate and be grateful that there’s a girl at all. She holds his wrist, holds his arm, draws spirals on his palms. It makes him feel needed. He doesn’t know when anyone has truly needed him. It’s a good feeling. So he doesn’t tell her to leave, even though she should. He’s scared that she soon will and then he will fall, fall, fall and not fly.

‘I think I’ll die soon,’ he tells her, because the inevitable must occur. He would’ve probably outlived Lord Stark, and not felt too sorry about it, because he would’ve escaped a might be death. But he cannot be alive when Robb is dead. It doesn’t make sense. It is a constant self-torment.

‘You stop thinking like that’ Jeyne says stubbornly and Theon wants to smile. He thinks of Jeyne Poole, the sister Sansa wanted but didn’t have in Arya, but she was only a steward’s daughter with a lady companion. They used to behave like they were nobility’s grace and so much better than that Greyjoy boy.

This is the real Jeyne, he thinks. She’s so strong, so sweet, so selfless.

‘Theon,’ she says, voice ladylike, lovely and the stuff songs are made of, ‘you really think I’d ever leave you?’

‘I thought you’d run from me the moment you could,’ he says honestly, ‘because you’re the victim and not the traitor so you shouldn’t be near me,’ and the sentence has too many words and he isn’t used to speaking that much anymore. It wasn’t even his words, it was his accent too. It was him. He was wrong.

Theon, Theon, it rhymes with no one.

‘I didn’t though. I didn’t leave you,’ she says proudly.

‘Jeyne,’ he starts, and she grins so wide, her smile is a slightly crooked because her nose must’ve broken, but its cute somehow. She doesn’t like it, but he thinks its a gift.

‘I like my name,’ she interrupts, ‘I like me. I don’t want to be Arya,’ she pauses, ‘I don’t want to be Sansa either.’

It startles Theon, because he has always wanted to be like a Stark and he always had to live up to the Ironborn manner, but maybe its good being Theon. Just Theon. Just Jeyne.

‘Lady Jeyne,’ he says, because she is not m’lady. She is not to be addressed by the common enunciation. She’s the most honourable lady he knows, anyway. She kept her word. She said he could be her man, and she’s giving him the chance to be.

‘Theon,’ she replies, like it’s a great noble title. Theon, jagged teeth and gums, wants to smile. He used to smirk, with his perfect row of white teeth, and all the secrets he wouldn’t tell. He can’t remember the last time he had occasion to smile, when it was once rare to find an occasion not to.

Their scarred and torn, and there’s no way to mend them, no one who knows how to, no one else who can understand. He is more than the war. If only they knew, the kings who’d demanded it, who’d helped to turn his hair white. He cries into his collar, the cold fur sticking to his bones, because he’s haunted and hurt. He never cried before, because Ironborn show no weakness, but tears are salty like the sea, so they could be a strength too. He has earned it.

The Pyke Isles are too harsh. He cannot go back there. He used to think he always had Winterfell as somewhere safe, some sort home. Rob’s Winterfell. Then Theon took it away from his king. So there is no where, besides Jeyne.

‘Theon, thank you,’ she touches her nose, a habit after the frostbite, ‘you’re better than a knight.’

Theon splutters. ‘They’re only people,’ she scoffs, ‘they don’t know how to fly.’

He doesn’t know whether what he did was heroic or desperate. Once, a boy called Theon Greyjoy thought he knew too much, but all he knows now is his name.

Theon, Theon, it rhymes with Theon.


	2. Chapter 2

Theon redefines the contours of life. He needs to learn how to walk again, to step away from the broken gait he hobbles with. He stuffs wool into his boots and leather under his heels, takes wide practice strides on a deserted path, muttering madly.

The boy with opinions like sea water, tongue snappish with retorts and taunts, has forgotten how to speak. His throat is harsh with screams, gums hollow with helpless pleading, and now his conversation is chewed but unheard. He clicks words against his precious teeth, finding them once more, rolling the letters around his mouth.

More often, he listens. He knows how to hide, to disappear into silhouettes and wither into shadows. People talk and it is all consequential. He wants to interrupt, to dispel their illusions of kings. They don’t know those who rule. They don’t understand their deep unworthiness. Sometimes, he wants to comment, because you should say you love someone before their taken away or mostly, to say sorry. 

There is worse agony than a broken heart. And forgiveness is rarer than dragons.

Yet, he is always quiet. They are all so worldly and he is beyond, smashed on the rocks before the shore. They don’t know what it is like to have life unravelled and frayed, beyond loss. Although gaunt enough to be almost obscure, when noticed, he causes an immediate reaction of horror. They step away in revulsion, he steps back from fear.

He is afraid of them all. Men have power. Men can hurt him.

Women aren’t so scary. Jeyne isn’t. 

She still knows how to laugh. It’s like soap suds popping on his skin. She’s quite funny too, humorous in a way girls usually aren’t. He wants to laugh with her, but he has drowned in woe. He has to find it from somewhere inside him, then unknot it. 

Jeyne’s eyebrows are mesmerizing. They are concern and curiosity. He learns the language. It is his favourite one so far. It is all his and he won’t share. He tries to smile with his eyes, because she doesn’t deserve to be smirked at. He doesn’t unnerve her and for that he is grateful. Jeyne is imagination and the future and pretty brown eyes which he likes more than anything. 

She watches him while he eats. He doesn’t even know how to eat anymore. It’s strange, having food that’s cooked and soft, that doesn’t have blood and tastes like blessings. He chews like his concentrating on something serious. Most of his teeth are useless, broken at the roots and they jar when caught, right through to his eardrums.  
He is all emptiness and edges. He doesn’t want to be grateful. He wants to be furious. The anger in him is seamless, too grey to understand, the want for revenge is crushing, but there is no strength in him to hold it all up. He cannot even hold up his will and wakes up wondering what breathing really is. He only seems to hold Jeyne. He held her when they jumped. He seems to hold her spirit now. 

She trusts him. He doesn’t even trust himself. He has only ever trusted Robb. Everybody trusted Robb. It was a natural instinct people had around the boy. He betrayed him almost effortlessly, the boy he knew, in moments around blood family he was supposed to truly trust. He feels the iron rings of his friend’s disappointment clutch around his chest.  
He will try and change for the memory of Robb Stark. 

It is too late for loyalty but promises to the dead are what he could attain to. Jeyne unknowingly helps him keep his pledge, until she is part of it. He cuts his hair because he knows she cannot like it. It is as white as death, and his evil deeds fall with it. 

‘Soon, your hair will be as black as it was at home’ she says, because of course Winterfell is home and it isn’t supposed to be his, but home is only attached to the word Winterfell, no matter how he tries to wrench it apart. It is all of them, practicing in the yard, Arya and Bran too, with the forests always listening to them. The winds spied and knew all their secrets. 

They knew his dark thoughts and the way he made them all come true. 

It is all so frightening. He’s stranded on a bridge between the towers, whipped by the winds, neither here nor there. He had has one constant in his life. He has always been a prisoner. He has seemingly escaped from walls and wars, but is now ensnared in himself. He is trapped in a soul marred with betrayal and regret and dying in a sack of brittle bones and scarred skin. 

He looks almost as old as Old Nan. He is young though, too young. He could survive on broken toes until he’s a hundred years old. He feels like a constant litany of ‘cannot’, and will never be normal again, but it seems like he has to live with himself. 

Sometimes, he’s not so sure he can. He clutches his knife until his knuckles might break and wonders whether anything was ever worth it.


	3. Chapter 3

Theon, at first, was only intent on remembering his name, hearing it over and over again, until he could say it without halting, the word not bleeding on his tongue. Then he learnt that his name had to have attachments, meanings and interests, to make it truly his. Otherwise, it might’ve just been a five letter word, with only a sound to it and nothing else. He could still be called by his name, but then he could also be owned by someone else.

He doesn’t want to be someone else’s ever again. He wants to be himself. It is progress that intimidates him, because he doesn’t quite know how to have an identity anymore. It seems to have been years, where he was a caricature of contortion, stripped off skin and soul. He remembers the other boy’s life, the first him, but is afraid of that confidence, untrusting of the casualness in which he had lived. It aggravates him. The first Theon Greyjoy acted flippant toward almost everything. He should’ve been running, but he was mindless and ridiculous, sinking into the quicksand he thought would’ve held him forever. 

Now, he only knows that there is no worth in life. He must always remember this. It can always be taken away. Royalty doesn’t matter and neither does skill. Only fate does, and he is wary of it, so wary. There are too many decisions, too many warnings, and it dispels him into desperation, clutching his knees and breathing haphazardly.

Jeyne tells him to start small. He doesn’t like being touched, but it is the lightness with which she approaches it that makes him helpless to push her away. She sits next to him, leaning on his shoulder, as if he’s just another person and not mostly dying. He is though, dying. When he tells her this, because she’s stubborn as steel and won’t let him be -to chant his name through chattering teeth, curled up so tight, trying to be gone, gone away- she clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes.

‘I don’t want to like what I liked before,’ he says, because this haunts him. He doesn’t have those things anymore. He doesn’t have Robb, for instance. 

‘Then don’t,’ she shrugs, ‘do you like your new boots?’

Since there are quite a few deaths around here, there are quite a few empty pairs of good boots too -not great, not like his old ones, but that doesn’t matter anymore- on offer. The boots are brown and heavy, and mostly, their warm.

‘I do,’ he says tentatively.

‘That’s good,’ she says, encouragingly.

‘I’d like to be warm,’ he murmurs hesitantly, still unused to wanting something.

Truth is, even though he doesn’t recall a single day of the summer they speak of in the South, warmth that doesn’t require any fur at all, no boiled leather and gloves, because the North is always, always cold, a relentlessness that won’t leave the land, he is cold in another way now too. It’s in his bones, his blood, his nightmares, every part of him frozen, every part of him shutting down. 

And it burns. And he screams.

Theon can hardly remember the true winter, the one the Starks are always warning everybody about. He supposes he was still a child when it furled back into its dungeons and the winds that whipped the bridges of the towers back in Pyke were more fearful than the actual cold. When it finally unleashed its wrath, he confidently assumed that he’d survive it.  
The Starks didn’t like this attitude to a winter they spoke of as if they alone owned and suffered through, but when he helpfully pointed out that the others hadn’t experienced it either, they all gave him witheringly frigid looks. They were probably born with winter in their bones, which was a rather depressing way to exist. Sometimes, they lacked a good sense of frivolity. 

The North hardly inspired cheer. It was endless and empty, smothered by mist. The people were as unbreakable as black ice, resistant to the ruthless weather and determined to avenge. They froze their hatred and Theon was quite sure, that he would one day feel the avalanche of it. After all, they loved as fiercely as they fought, and they had loved their lords. 

He wasn’t sure he understood love. There was loyalty, which he was seemingly a failure at. He had tried to be loyal to the Starks, and then to his father, neither of which had ended well. It was better to be free and fight for nothing, which was probably a good doctrine to follow, because leaders only wanted fighters and he couldn’t fight anymore. 

There was devotion, which was loyalty but with more affection, and harder to dispose off. He figured he needed someone very special indeed, to be devoted to. He is hesitant about this though, afraid that he’ll one day be stripped away from himself again, and he has to remember his name. 

Then there’s the only other love he can identify, the way Lord Stark loved his children. It always unsettled him. He’d never seen anything like it. On the islands, affection was to be whipped away, something to be ashamed off. Here, it was generous and bright, effortless. 

Theon still didn’t know what that felt like and it had stripped away some of his innate empathy. He knew how to lash with insults and biting remarks. It simply came easier to him than openly expressed niceness. Robb was a great friend, he knew that, Robb was almost his brother, but Robb still wasn’t. And of them all, he was most jealous of Jon Snow, who didn’t have the name but had the family. Robb had never held any question towards Jon’s lineage, accepting him as completely as if they were full siblings, which was what they would never be and that hurt too.

The Stark words didn’t just mean the weather, they meant all the words unuttered but intended, which left a young man bereft and yearning for something he didn’t understand. Winter was coming and along with it, they now speak of the monsters. 

He isn’t afraid of the Others. Theon knows his own kind of monsters and they have left him with the fiercest fear of winter. He is not the lad who hadn’t taken it that seriously, thought snow and frost couldn’t take any of his toes or fingers, like the hands proud old men waggled without thumbs. He lost before winter could take anything away from him, and it was cold, cold, cold, all alone with own anguish.

‘I’d like to be warmer too,’ Jeyne sighs, leaning closer to him, even though she is all bones, breakable and birdlike, needing furs if she is to survive the coming years, it somehow makes him feel better, wisps of ice melting inside. 

‘I like you,’ he smiles, small, cautious and sure.

‘You know something? I do too,’ she closes her eyes, trusting, because she’s good like that and he doesn’t know how.

Maybe this is called affection, he thinks, holding her slightly. Maybe this means something, and he shouldn’t die just yet, and try to hold onto it. Maybe he'll able to, this time.


	4. Chapter 4

Ghosts are a crisscross of secrets and betrayals, in all the wars which were fought in cold concaves, smothered in darkness. There are no swords where the real fights happen, no good footwork and sharp red ends, there are only words, harsher than the gurgles of breath which leave a common man’s throat. They pray for life, others pray for power, and the one who cruelly, mirthfully, succeeds. 

He failed. He flew.

Theon decides to leave the land he has grown up in, to row away from the forests of his detriment. His lungs are etched in ice, and he needs to live anew. He has forgotten what it’s like to breathe. He takes small, quiet breaths, afraid that he’ll be caught doing something, anything. He hasn’t actually done anything incriminating for years now, but he was told his whole being was a mistake and so was merely punished for that. He didn’t deserve to have any rights at all. 

He was wrought, strung up, twisted, and he believed it too.

They stole his mind. He tries to bind together its scattered fragments, to find a semblance of fortitude, to strangle his demons and wrench away his nightmares. He thinks about the House of Black and White, which he once read about, and the hall of faces. He would like a new face, along with a new identity, a new name, someone who’d never seen what happened to those captured by war.

There are so many levels of harm. He was guilty of some, experienced the harshest. He doesn’t know how he survived. Everyone else died in those cells, they all turned as black as the walls. Maybe it’s a continuation of the torture, where he has to live with himself, broken bones, bereft soul; a never-ending life of insistent torment.

He ties his gloves over his wrist with string. There are memories of before, comforts that are in him, another sort of skin. He wears rags now which would look miserable on beggars. He sometimes misses it, the easiness of wearing those rich garments, the warmth of them and even the way they looked. It shames him, because he is supposed to be only grateful for this life, while he is still weary of being reminded of his old one. He wore fur to the Iron Isles, and his father mocked him for it, but Theon of Winterfell was so well used to it.

Theon is noble and it still shows.

Perhaps that is why the Braavosi takes pity on him. The man looks at him almost understandingly, as if he knows how bitter the fall from grace is and Theon is destitute enough to accept any help at all. He knows, after all, that pride is only a beacon towards a terrible end and he cannot afford the hope of princes. The man, with his bright silk robes, so foreign to the winter greys, so undeterred in their colourful fervour, asks him if he has any skill. He says he knows how to whittle arrows and, because it is not enough, he ends off, ‘and how to shoot them.’

They are to procure a bow and arrow with which he can demonstrate his worth. Bankers do not make investments without return, even if it’s just a boy, remorseful and repentant. The lie keeps him on edge, rattled, disturbed. He hasn’t had the opportunity of holding a bow, let alone to shoot with it. He knows he hasn’t lost his skill. It is there in the curve of his arm, the hitch of his shoulder, and the whispers of his lost fingers. 

He asks Jeyne to come with him. She agrees, shows no qualms about it, as if she’s going for a stroll. He had always thought women were weak. He knows now that they have the most strength, and have learnt to hide their truth beneath their demeanors. They show not much of their true emotion.

White Harbour watches; cold and judgmental, the only witness to his trial. 

At deck, he is met with a bow and arrow, and a pang with which he remembers his old one, made for his height, his weight, him. Then he’d proclaimed, gloried by the moment and the fine bone, with Lord Stark, Robb, Jon and the yard looking on, ‘this is a perfect weapon.’ It was part of him, a contortion growing from his hip, along his elbow, to the faint twang of the release. 

His fingers curl around the thin wood, wrap along the murmurs of the craftsman. He can hear gasps of fright, somewhere in his lost mind, where his other fingers fell and he falters. His wrist whimpers, locked with fear.

The Braavosi’s guard waits. He is wielding an arakh that makes Theon want to run, horrified by the thoughts at what it could do to him, at least relieved he’d be buried at sea. The man points to a door a few metres onward. It is a target a child would have no trouble with. Theon shivers.

He can’t stop.

The guard laughs. The weapon etches murder into the air.

Jeyne holds his arm, fingers latching him to earth.

A raven screeches, Theon, Theon, Theon.

Notch. Draw. Loose.

Theon lifts his bow and shoots, a bird splattered on sails.

~~

The man will guide them on their voyage toward his land. The ship sets sail when the sun belligerently lowers its rays so that they may part, and Theon is glad to be at sea once more, even though it’s on different waters. 

The seas are not all the same, he tells the ravens, wondering if they’ll follow him. They know his name, and he is loath to part with them, the whispers of familiarity in it that he hears from none anymore. They sound suspiciously like a boy he once knew, a sweet boy, who didn’t lower his arm enough when he let loose the arrow. Theon would guide him patiently, stand that way and twist your wrist just so, then shoot.

Both those boys are dead now.


	5. Chapter 5

The sea lashes vociferously against the hull of their sizable vessel, and Theon watches, mesmerized, at its superseding greatness. It is uncontrollable, mightier than armies draped in weapons, melting coins in desperate palms, fire spitting black dragons, or skies glinting with emerald wildfire and he wants it to flood over Westeros, to drown all the hatred and hurt, because there is no other way to be rid of evil hearts. Then the ones spared would fly anew, like fledglings, wings innocent and eager, soft and scared in their tentative dreams. 

The sea does not judge. It will accept skin peppered with age, and too, skin softer than the fabrics the Tyroshi man flaunts. It will drown the greedy and the kind, all those he misses, etched around his heart, never to ever be forgotten, all those he hates, marred by their mirth forever. And it will accept him too, as just another lost human, not a Theon Greyjoy. 

The clouds, furs of grey, like the wolves who once knew him, rolling their eyes at his translucent bravado, are inconsiderate of the pleas of sailors. Rain that merges with the sea, sweet water and harsh, amused at Theon’s expression, the way he stares through wet eyelashes, and his hair, growing dark and long, stuck to his cheeks.

He feels more like salt crystal than skin. He likes that, the way it cures him, bleaching out his past. The crew are wary of him at first, of the haunted mist that shadows him like poison, they know of people like him, all wrong, all damaged, in a sparring match with death. They also recognise the sea in him, an innate knowledge of the ever changing winds, and the way he must manipulate the sails to rush them forward. It is strange. He left the Islands when it was still winter, and he was afraid of the cold and ever, ever greyness of the waves that hit the rocks cruelly, nightmares of them flooding through the windows of his room, strangling him before he could run. After that, for years, he missed the ocean, the smell of it lacing itself into the very air and its angry lullaby as the waves smashed onto the shore. And when he returned, behaving as probably, the most ridiculous man in the world, the sailors mocked their young Northern captain, and he failed at their curdled, white faced expectations.

It reminds him of his sister. He doesn’t want to think of her.

They gave him ropes first, to tie knots, which his fingers did while he drifted into oblivion, and their smiles were warm, like the homes which they constantly talked off, a sun that could singe a man’s skin brown, sons who filled their hearts with the hope of return. They tease him, say he’s pale, translucent, that he might faint like a girl when he feels the heat. All the words are pronounced tilted, childish with twisted tongues, and it makes him want to laugh.

He learns their language without wanting to. A jargon of expression from many a sailors distant births, and in it he adds his too, the Heir of the Pyke Isles, the Ward of Winterfell, an accent ill-fitting not quite so long ago, but here with the Braavosi and the tattooed man from Lys, a deckhand from Old Town and the deserted son of a Dothraki warrior and his Pentoshi lady love, a Dornish girl dressed as a boy, it slithers into one language, dripping off into the whispers of the wind and the whipping waves.

The sailors tell Jeyne the true words of their homes, random ones, or of those that they miss, oranges, sweethearts, spring and gold. Theon is so afraid for her at first, afraid that he won’t be able to protect her, that these strong men will shove him into the sea to harm his only friend. She is angry when he tries to tell her this. She says she can protect herself, that she’s quicker with a knife than he is. A woman, he once would’ve yelled, should never speak to him like that, but he apologises to her, willing that she can somehow be safe, and never, ever harmed again. 

Maybe it is the knife she wears unsheathed at her side, the way her heart beats in rapid fear, radiating off her in ways that even the sailors are cautious to touch or her allegiance with the Dornish girl, but they do not approach her. She is effortlessly charming, caringly sweet. They’re more her friends than his. It’s probably just her jokes, Theon thinks. Although the laughter that was for him, to make his mind brighter, his veins bleed once more, is now shared with strangers. 

‘You’re jealous,’ she tells him, grinning delightedly, like he’s given her something, a trinket maybe or now days, even a half smile. ‘Nobody has ever done that,’ she says excitedly, ‘and especially not a boy.’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ he mutters. 

‘Theon Greyjoy,’ she clicks her tongue, smirking at his sullen expression, at the fact that he’s trapped and can’t walk away, that she has him so effortlessly at attention.

She’s so casual about his name.

It is all unfair. He can’t remember ever being this helpless with a girl. He wants to sulk, wrap his arms around his knees and glare at something inanimate offensively, until it wakes up and fights him. Theon rightfully deserved to sulk sometimes, and he was good at it. He could go on for hours, make himself entirely miserable and his missed presence noticed by almost everyone. Robb used to kick at his boots, tell him to come out and spar. Jon would roll his eyes imperiously. Arya, chatty about random things and even though she was always mocked at for not being so girly, he’d always thought she was so kind. Bran, sit next to him quietly, because the boy was good at that, taking the pain of others’ away without saying a word.

‘It’s good you’re handsome,’ she says nonchalantly, ‘because if you weren’t, I wouldn’t be impressed.’

Theon looks at his hands, runs his tongue over his teeth, and wonders why she lies to him. 

Jeyne looks at Theon, and tucks his hair behind his ears, and remembers watching a boy with a sword, his hair always falling in front of his eyes, and how she’d wanted to braid it back for him. She’s good at braids.

Maybe someday, he’d kiss her cheek. 

Maybe someday, she’d kiss him.

It is a storm filled with curses which threatens the ship into bones. The ill words of sailors spat on his homeland is the reason, Theon is sure, that they’ve all been in so much trouble lately. Then there are the waters which are warm, pretty with iridescent green, slants of sunrays caught through it like mirrors, waves that lilt lightly, and Theon wants to swim, to live, to rejoice with the grateful calls of the sailors. 

Now the men row, the strength of legions in their muscles and Theon watches them. He’d never been one for that kind of raw strength, like many of the Northerners who formed the vanguard. Robb might’ve grown to be almost as strong as these, had he lived longer. 

It was that crown which weighed more than water. 

If you’d sat close enough to Robb, -at his left, which was where he’d always been, for years now, Jon Snow on the right, like Robb was some sort of magnet- when he was bestowed with that deathly title, you’d see the way he raised his shoulders proud, and his eyes low. He knew Robb, if only he’d done what a good friend was supposed to do. He should’ve thrown that crown back at those men, and told them to lead themselves into their own graves.

They had all been so wrongfully proud. 

The ship swells on the edge of the coastlines, letting loose of its men and their pockets of gold, one by one. They do not dock, loathe with taxes, and neither do they choose their new residence. He is wary of the glances of the traders, their flickers of distaste. 

He wonders if they will stop over at Braavos, with the swish of light boats along pathways, and its ancient air, of bronze coin and bankers. He wants to stop over at the House of Black and White, perhaps never to leave. 

They depart at Pentos, to sea and citrus


	6. Chapter 6

Humans, Theon muses, are, as a race, mostly all the same. He used to think, buoyed by Old Nan’s stories, that the people across the Narrow Sea grew a sort of dreadfulness along with the rest of their limbs, so that it made them as beastly as the giants and their mammoths. He had watched for it carefully, tried to find the sly secrets they must’ve held like shadows in between silky folds, a corrupted language known only to heathens, but there was nothing like it. 

Here too, they committed every cardinal sin, with as much flourish as it was perpetrated by any Andal. They tried to hide it too, and got caught more often than not, ending up forlorn on their own paths. Only the times changed, and the landscapes, the future, the discoveries, the weather, perhaps even the ground, and the skies, he decided, but not the people. 

If his fellow wonderers back in the Winterfell library, with their great imaginations, would be disappointed by the severe normality of these people, they would not be by the fierceness of the city itself.

This is where the Narrow Sea is insistent in its divide.

It had to be the sun; glorious and relentless, exuberant. And the vengeful need it demanded, for life. It has made its citizens restless, spinning with change, and yet it was their constant. Theon wanted to be swept away into it all. Quiet in the stretching shadows of the towers, he watched them.   
Clothes couldn’t be a single solemn colour, as if that was an affront to the idea of it. They seemed to wear a lot of yellow. It astonished him. He knew of gold across the fingers off kings, imperial in the gowns of princesses, not on every other man, an expression of profound existence.

Theon Greyjoy was an anomaly in a land of being noticed. 

Their art, of course, was trade. It hummed through the city, the dramatic flair of the seller as he bragged about his treasured produce, the click-clack of coins as it flipped into his palm. It was a fervent game, a determined desire. The markets were explorations into their wants, and what they demanded from their buyers. Everyone could have the menial, but many could afford the exotic. Sometimes, you could improvise, sometimes, just not tell.

He’d heard this from two traders, whispering. The best saffron flowers were supposed to come from Dorne. However, one of them had found a lower grade in a smaller village not far off the coast, but nobody had to know about where it came from exactly. He’d watched them sell and haggle, lie and lie, until they were caught out. Stall splintered, saffron scattered. They escaped the brawl, money bags already on ships.

Still, even though it seemed enjoyable enough, all the arguing about different cheeses and good peaches, there were too many of them, so it was harsh as well, grating competition in the heat. He liked the stores in the quieter parts, in darker corners, with the whispers, the mean eyebrows. Here, there were men with furtive movements, conspicuous in their future achievements. They sold weapons there, destruction against whom and who, he didn’t want to know. The designs were elegant in their evil, curved cold steel swords and dangerously delightful crossbows.

And there was this bow and arrow. A beautiful pair.

Further on, the shops were slighter, as if they almost didn’t exist. They sold poison there, mushrooms and tinctures, tiny glass bottles which promised absolution. Theon wondered just how many deserved his ire, and if he was one of them. Women frequented these shops, slipping in and out darkly, as silent as he’d ever seen them.   
The women were dazzling. He watched them because they were like a living theatre, an act of dance and show that they held in their hips and hands, through randomness and routine. It was their fearlessness, the fact that they were better than him. They winked at him, not quite taunting, not quite kind, but it made him blush and stutter, as if he’d not known a lady before.

Jeyne, with words whistled in warning, reminds him that poison is a woman’s weapon. 

‘Their curious,’ he says, drawing circles in the sand with his boots, ‘nothing more.’ He is a tremulous phantom, and these people like to know. That is why there they sell books too, on parchment, in between leather covers, or cloth ones, translated, because they need to know about this and that, about almost everything.

They don’t know about lords who cannot read, who aren’t ashamed of their illiteracy or of women who wouldn’t consider it worthier than skirts. They don’t know how Ned Stark insisted upon it, each child to be perfect with reading and writing, a library to be proud of. He’d order books for any one of their preferred interests, because it mattered. 

They would’ve all liked it here, he thinks, everyone of them. 

Then there’s the food, brave and brash, laced into the air. In the market, it is a journey of quirky tastes for each class, but it is mostly about the fare at the merchant’s house.  
Back, back, before, where he doesn’t want to think of it, trip and trip, try to yank himself up in the marshes of his mind, there used to be feasts. They ate great hunks of roasted meat, sweet onions, charred and crunched, and sourdough bread. It was strength, hunger conquered, home. And he had lived in a castle, one of the greatest in the Seven Kingdoms, with its lineage of kings, its heirs of fierce pride and power. Still, the North demanded a constant survival, a desperate warning. 

It would punish you for lazy luxury.

They were almost preposterous in the way they ate here. It couldn’t just be soup -vegetables grown miraculously in glass gardens, simple, salty, gratefulness- it tasted like a story, twilight and cream, spices smuggled in by worthy pirates. Then there was more, and more, sticky and sweet. The merchant, who ate until his limbs croaked, and his chest heaved, begging for a breath, commanded Theon to eat.

‘You’re a prince, you are used to this,’ he says, rolling shoulders, goose fat on his heavy fingers. Theon thinks of Pyke, which had hidden itself in a murky, miserable history. It almost wanted to become obscure. He had chewed his supper there, stuck to his palate with the disappointment of so many mere memories, astringent winds as eerie as his father’s heart. 

He’ll keep to the soups, thank you. 

~~

Theon was supposed to have his life scribed into scrolls. He was going to be the lord of an ancient realm. He would have the respect of all the Lords, especially the king, or rather, a constant suspicion of infuriating rebellions. The ward of a family who commanded the entire North, their might-be much needed protection. As the most talented archer –probably, ever- the fall back of a good career in the army.

Instead, he’s a teacher.

His students, two boys and one girl, the children of the merchant, watch him warily. He sits across from them, cross-legged, staring back. They ask questions, wicked ones, about witches and bears, creatures that lurk in forests, giant brown eyes seizing up his supposed lies, not utterly believing him that there is no magic, no monsters.

He doesn’t tell them that there is no worse monster than man. They will find that out, right in their city, and he doesn’t want them to, just yet. He doesn’t want them to know that he’s one of them.

The merchant has told him to teach realistically. He wants his children to know about their majestic neighbours, their lands, lords, loves, laws. Then you will cheat them someday, Theon thinks, or perhaps conquer White Harbour. There’s no one left to save it. 

They’re learning his language, crookedly, comically. Sometimes you need a full set of teeth to teach, and the children mimic him, fascinated. He doesn’t look like their quintessential teacher, never takes his boots off, or his gloves either, and he comes from somewhere where it snows.

‘My brothers and I,’ he pauses, feels the icy winds lash across his face, isn’t sure if he’s delusional or it’s really the truth ‘would hunt wolves, and take the skins for ourselves, because we had to wear them, else we might freeze.’

‘You had to dress warmly in the summer?’ the youngest boy gaps at him, the sun rays stripping through their fingers, laughing at his fairytales.

‘Yes,’ he says, almost smiling; amused at their amazement. He doesn’t want to laugh, but he can’t help it sometimes, and the children aren’t judgmental or scared of his jagged teeth. He never thought he’d like children for any reason, but he does, their acceptance gives him confidence, good like the soups.

His favourite stories are the ones of Winterfell. There is no one now to caution him, to mock him that is wasn’t really his, but it was his only home, and the irony is that he is the last one left to tell of its legacies. Maester Luwin would never believe it. The lessons he’d taught years ago, continuing through his most restless student, to Pentoshi children. He wants to see his wise expressions, his knowing eyes and his good, good heart. The chance he had been given for retribution.

His head aches, throbs behind his eyeballs. His pain was amorphous and endless. Nightmares and regrets, the truths that changed continents, earth cracking beneath him as decided which way to run. 

These are the stories that he doesn’t tell his students. These regrets are all he owns, to make him shiver in the welcoming weather.


	7. Chapter 7

Hope.

There’s the absence of it. The acceptance of the fact. Hopelessness. A word he has both come to despise and to embrace. It is a path of wretchedness, giving up because you’ve forgotten the sun. It is an imagination akin to a lost war, only of death and destruction. Here, it is about phantoms. The words you cannot say to people who are gone. The finality of this almost strangles him sometimes. It is desperately, ridiculously, infuriating. And what you could to do better, if you had all your limbs. There is no way to be the same way you were, the fluidity of a moment, the flawlessness of a movement. He doesn’t feel the burn of it anymore. He feels the nonexistence of it furiously and beseechingly, held taut in phantom pain. 

There’s the conclusive way you can deal with it, where it seems you fore-go all facts of fate and decide that you control it. You destroy the very idea of hopelessness. It doesn’t seem to work for anyone in the North. Maybe they’d all lived a warm, good life in Winterfell, with no one to constantly wish for their harm, that they’d forgotten lives without honor, without hope.

He remembers the royal visit, a convoy of fires, where each strange, strong figure there was certain of their statuses and selves. Like the youngest brother, who showed more confidence than any of them, despite his stature. And the King, way past his day, willing to use Ned Stark, to threaten him, so that he may keep his throne. The Queen and her brother, self assured that they were winners, doom to anyone who dare glance at their gold. They all knew their liabilities, and were going to use terrible means to keep themselves safe from destruction.

He didn’t know who he was, wasn’t sure who he’d become, where he’d stay, where he’d go. It’s difficult to know what to hope for, when you’re not sure exactly what your restrictions are.

It’s always been a bit problematic, being Theon Greyjoy.  
~~

Then there’s expressive, certain hope, it cannot be quelled because of the knowledge of something better, or at least the idea of it. It is freedom born within the young, stitched through their existences, so their hope is as boundless as the skies. Perhaps, threads of it remain through life. Because when it is gone, there is only an end.

He supposes he is a model of the theory, seeing as he had somehow, shrugged of the shackles and survived. He could have stayed. He could have used his knife for another type of insistent escape.

It surprises him to discover that he is quite brave. It isn’t the way he once wanted to be, in the storybook way his students now dream off. The knight who wins tourneys and destroys enemies. It is in all the incredible and mundane decisions he makes. 

One day, he jumped. 

Yesterday, he took off his gloves in front of the students.

He had been thinking about it for awhile. He was ashamed of it, certainly, and didn’t want the three to lower their esteem of him because of it. He didn’t want to scare them either, because it was obviously wrong to have a teacher who looked like he’d lost at the fighting pits and then been tortured. Well, it was the truth but they didn’t need to know that.

It was also the heat. He could feel his skin melting into the boiled leather, made for Northern winters, to keep the cold just away. He was self-imposing unneeded suffering on his poor hands, again. And really, he needed to keep them safe, if he wants to use that bow and arrow. 

The wool stuffed gloves antagonise him at any time he isn’t busy with something and he loses himself in a myriad of the miserable; despair, memories, pity, hatred, uselessness and deciding whether he should be crying or angry. He clasps his hands together, to make the world just go away, and the leather squeaks. 

‘Stop fretting,’ Jeyne snaps at him.

Theon blinks at her. She doesn’t snap. She’s good, in this wide, wild way, where it’s surprising and comforting. Like there are no beginnings or ends, to her special type of niceness. 

‘You know something?’ She glares at him, wispy hair falling into her eyes, which sort of ruins the effect slightly, ‘I don’t think anyone cares about your hands, besides you. You keep fidgeting with it, and then they notice more.’

‘It isn’t my fault,’ he responds petulantly, like she doesn’t know that. It isn’t fair to her really, because he’s complained about it to her expressively, and she’s always listened. 

‘Oh for goodness sake, Theon,’ she says dismissively. 

It’s been quite awhile, since he’s felt like he needs to apologise to a living person. It makes him forget being worried about his appearance, and more about the fact that he might be alone again soon, because he couldn’t stop fidgeting. 

That’s sad, actually.

Their relationship is a tenuous one, molten in chains because of outlandish occasions and floating with fierce doubts, because of his once, critical choices. He is well aware that he is the one who is at fault, who deserves to be left, who needs to be kind, so very cautious.

‘You’re alright here, you know,’ Jeyne had told him, mere days ago.

He had looked at his day, like he was seeing through a pond of very clear water. It was a clean life, he had understood, and that made it precious, a dream of it wanting to be brilliant, nothing like he had ever had before. 

He has destroyed many a good thing in his past. He holds his breath, to see if he will do it once more.  
~~

At class, the next day, the students sit in his place, all looking at him, both serious and shy, and tap the slate board. 

‘I’m going to teach you how to write Pentoshi,’ the girl says importantly, gesturing for him to sit down, like he's the student. Theon obeys. Sometimes, he knows, you’ve got to play along with children and also, his writing is worse than the girl’s. The three are probably the only ones in the world who can understand it.

‘You’ve got to take off your gloves first,’ says the boy, all of seven years old, an odd mix of wisdom and expectance on his face. Maybe, if he thinks about it in another way –so very many about fingers- it’s because a younger Theon would’ve laughed at anyone with any mark of difference. And if he had seen a person who now looked like him, all marred and mad, he very well knows he’d mock him.

Theon wants to stand up and walk to the pier and swim away. 

‘Can I see?’ the four year old boy, the most affable being he has ever met, comes to sit next to him. He pulls at the gloves, not insistently, or meanly, mostly curious. He doesn’t understand any sorts of why’s yet and it’s marvellous.

‘Is that a wolf?’ he asks, tiny fingers grazing the stitched emblem in the leather. 

‘A direwolf,’ Theon corrects. He thinks of a boy, broken, brave, who wanted to ride and fight and be.

‘And this is…’ he switches over to the left hand, pointing at the sigil of the sea creature.

‘A kraken,’ Theon explains. He is both. And there’s no one here to order him to feel any different. To cut him in half, to demand he choose his allegiance, to kill himself for families who, he wasn’t quite sure, would die for him either way. 

Theon yanks off his gloves. 

The children creep closer, wondering at what exactly their teacher finds so decidedly horrendous. They stare for awhile, whispering to each other, poking his hand first cautiously, as if it might bite or harm, then uninterestedly. 

They ask so many questions, he thinks, and they know when not to ask them.

Seriously? He likes kids.

He also wants his gloves back, but their drawing on it. He might be brave enough to take them off here, but he is not going to when he dines with the merchant. That’s called attention and he has learnt to hate it.

‘Look,’ says the girls, handing one back to him, chalk dust like white hope on it, ‘we’ve drawn our sigil too.’ 

Maybe one day, but for now, it’s given him an idea.

The sigil of House Poole is a blue plate on white, with a grey tressure. She's proud of her House, and her family, always speaks of them with respect and honor. It is all history now, unfortunately, and they aren't sure if anyone survived. She is alone now, a House all to her own. 

He takes the glove to one of the washerwoman, and asks her to stitch a swallow, in blue and white, onto the leather.

Jeyne is hope, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soar not too high, O bird of Hope!  
> Because the skies are fair;  
> The tempest may come on apace  
> And overcome thee there. 
> 
> When far above the mountain tops  
> Thou soarest, over all –  
> If, then, the storm should press thee back,  
> How great would be thy fall! 
> 
> And thou wouldst lie here at my feet,  
> A poor and lifeless thing, -  
> A torn and bleeding birdling,  
> With limp and broken wing. 
> 
> Sing not too loud, O bird of Hope!  
> Because the day is bright;  
> The sunshine cannot always last –  
> The morn precedes the night. 
> 
> And if thy song is of the day,  
> Then when the day grows dim,  
> Forlorn and voiceless thou wouldst sit  
> Among the shadows grim. 
> 
> Oh! I would have thee soar and sing,  
> But not too high, or loud,  
> Remembering that day meets night –  
> The brilliant sun the cloud.
> 
> Ella Wheeler Wilcox


	8. Chapter 8

There are so many variations of possessions, perspectives and personality. As much as he teaches, he has to learn. Before, he never had quite the affinity or attention span for languages and tombs of mind numbing history, and they hadn’t given him much besides young, bored grief. No one then would’ve guessed it would save his life. So now he’s grateful for those long hours in a cold, vast and eerie library. 

After mathematics, which he was good at because he was an archer, (this was apparently the reason), he also preferred stories of vicious wars, the ones too vitriolic for anyone else to want to remember. It did not bestow him with any favours, made him seem different, harsh, so he’d always tried to keep his fascination of it somewhat quiet. 

Yet, it affected him. He’d kicked the executed man’s head away, a mock example of undignified soldier or cursed barbarian. 

After, he became a character in these stories himself. He should’ve paid more attention to the ones with heroes and dragons, saviours and conquerors, instead of the cruel men, who so often triumph. Still, he survived while the chivalrous and honourable had died.

It isn’t easy to exist with the Pentoshi, especially since he lives amongst retinues of the rich. They always know more than him, and will not fail to trap him within their snide, clever remarks. They can be like snakes, leaving venom to sting through the continuing days. It spirals sourly through his self-hatred, blurs his fortunes, leaves him tripping over metaphorical boots.

They are all waiting to laugh at this poor teacher. A weak man who got lucky, who might just exist because of the generous nature of the merchant. 

While Theon is grateful for the merchant’s generosity, he knows he is not here only because he has been taken pity on. The man is a fierce tactician, dangerous in the cold knowledge he keeps from his fat peers, and is well aware that Theon will be a serious, and mostly secret, part of his legacy. 

Most do not know who he is. They might know a tale or two, of the mighty kraken that rose from the grey seas and murdered an ancient lineage, but he’s more of a legend than a man now, and they can’t seem to measure up rumours to this slight, disappearing person, who barely stops shivering. 

Still, being a teacher, he knows he cannot be sneered at. The merchant expects him to hold himself better, an eyebrow raised in warning. He doesn’t want attention, but he remembers the way men had admired his archery skills with that begrudging acknowledgment.

He wasn’t good with a bow and arrow, he was glorious. 

Maybe he even resents it sometimes, that they wouldn’t congratulate him wholeheartedly. That Greyjoy boy, sneaky, smiling, slightly strange, can’t trust him.

Just not good enough.

Well, that was before. Now, they will look up at him, easily, kindly, with gracious normality, and know that he is good enough, or maybe even better.

Even though he would like to demonstrate his archery skills, and perhaps a bow or two through the most corpulent, greedy to destroy those scorpions across the Narrow Sea, it’ll most likely end in jeers and unemployment. 

They take their tables deathly seriously here. 

Not as literally as those in Westeros though.

He walks through the servants quarters, a great stretch of economy, with the kitchens, laundries, stables, gardens, blacksmiths, builders and a few others. He isn’t barely suitable for any one of these professions, besides being a humorous moment for any of these worthy people and a completely insane act for the merchants. 

He needs opinions. Sometimes, they can sting you, like wasps, end in fatal occurrences. Other times, they can help friends and start wars for noble intentions. 

So, for his armour and attack, he tentatively chooses books. He might have always been well acquainted with them, cannot remember an age where he didn’t know how to read, to lazily page through passages and poems and phrases, but it didn’t mean he cared about it. If he didn’t have to read another book past his eighteenth name day, and settled for battle sheets and death threats, he wouldn’t rue it.

The library here tries to keep the sun away from melting its hostages. It is a valiant effort, but the rays melt in through the wooden window shades and tiger stripe the room. He feels like he’s sitting on the seabed, watching the sea swirl above him. 

The light is welcoming. It makes the books warmer, to embrace, to be enchanted. 

Suddenly, he cannot stop reading. It is all the torture, perhaps, the creeping pain of it that bruises him inside, the clench it has on his soul, the utter destruction of his sanity, that makes him want to drown into all these words.   
He’s breathing underwater.

***

Theon’s hair isn’t ash anymore. Its as black as the Iron Isles at midnight. Its gone long too, almost till his shoulders. Its straight, soft, and he feels like showing it off. Just a little.

He ties it up with old cloth, sometimes sticks a quill through it, he has the appearance of someone the girls are not sure whether to gap or frown at.

Its not exactly complimentary, but its better than those shameful stares they would all always throw at him.  
Jeyne braids it for him sometimes. She’s also probably using his hair to try out variations of Northern or Pentoshi styles, because she can yank it.

‘I protected my skull from flying axes, rats and knives,’ he says, crossly, ‘but I fear I’ll surely lose it at your hands!’

She hits his shoulder with the brush, his bony, malnutrition-ed shoulder, mind you, and continues yanking at his hair.

She even hums while she does it, as if its sanctioned to hurt someone for the mere sake of being all alight with the constantly changing fashions of this place.

Its his hair. She doesn’t care.

‘It will look fine, when its white and you’re old,’ she comments, giving it one last glance, a huff off acceptance at the simple braid.

See, this is why he adores Jeyne. He doesn’t really mind her twirling his hair through her fingers, curious and calm. He can’t, when she’s always saying things like this.

He has read quite a few books now, but somehow, her slight speech, nonchalant, not embroidered with lavish poetry, is purer than all of it. 

Sometimes, she wears her hair determinedly, scarily complicatedly, even when she’s walking around and talking to her friends with soapsuds till their elbows, not even at feasts. When she’s at home, with him, its lilting brown light, over her shoulders, half way down her back, whispers on her cheeks, constantly tucked behind her ears. 

He loves it. He should tell her. 

And maybe that he doesn’t just adore her. He should tell her that too. 

***

The teacher is invited (more like expected and ordered) to sup with the esteemed colleges and rivals of the merchant. Each guest appears with large smiles in the folds of their fleshy chins, bearing quirky presents for the children and an amiable enthusiasm for the night.

They are all liars, with these countenances. They are here to listen to the unintentional slips of tongue, which could show them which produce will be most profitable next month and who has fallen in with the guild.  
See, Theon knows that no matter how secretive you are, these people like to boast of their success. It is in their nature. They also like to lie, so it is a game and a solemn one at that, with money, along with families and feasts, all hinged precariously on it.

Teachers are called to the table so the host has a better standing amongst the others. He isn’t a greedy man with sticky palms, squirmed out of poverty with trickery, but a home of culture and future.

Normally, after Theon has been spoken about, praised beyond his education, because he hasn’t studied in Old Town or spent dedicated hours with a maester, he is then made to feel very uncomfortable while they taunt his Northern existence. After that, he carefully sips his soup, tries to be invisible and almost succeeds. 

This time, the merchant has told him to behave more like a man then a shy maiden. He knows women with less fear, while Theon is sure the women here are all much more likely to be fearsome. 

Also, he doesn’t have to feel that mournful about any of his non-existent fingers, toes or teeth. These merchants respect minds and money. This doesn’t matter to them (not when their laughing at him, at least).  
Still, he knows that he isn’t exaggeratedly conspicuous. He sees it in the market everyday. They don’t have noses or ears, wield swords one handed and are faster on a wooden leg then some are with both. They are known for these characteristics, laughed with instead of at.

So, Theon is going to be brave today. His braid makes him seem like a Dothraki horse lord. He wants to be one, those men are just fantastic, he is sort of in awe of them and their horses and the language that is so foreign, its almost peppery.

While that maybe his next journey, he will be a warrior here too. So, he tells them that the Dothraki wear bells in their braids, and while they prefer the more traditional make, there are other metals they might be interested in.  
The easiest way to be welcome in any crowd is to always, always listen and then to comment on their preferred field. He is well versed at this, having to endlessly, seamlessly fit into conversations which he had never cared about, but had kept him alive.

A small nod from the merchant. Theon chews easier, without choking himself on nervousness. 

Then, they of course start talking about cheeses. This is where he normally excuses himself and almost runs out, but he is born of the seas and is as strong as iron, no?

Carefully and quite magnificently, he must boast, he shares with them the knowledge he has of cheeses. There’s a few obscure and odd sources of his information, but he supposes its true, anyway. 

The milkmaid at Winterfell. 

The deckhand of the first ship he’d captained. He’d never encountered a man more versed in cheeses, even though eating them on a boat wasn’t exactly feasible. 

The southerners, who wouldn’t break their fast without it. Actually, they ate so much cheese, he’d grown used to having it with his meals too. 

The enemy knight. He’d shot that man. The remains of his life, in crumbles of bread and cheese.

The liar at the market who tries to sell a manner of supposedly fresh blocks, usually crawling with fungus.  
The Dornish traders, who chat to him sometimes. They share food on the harbour. He offers them Pentoshi cheese, yellow, strong, slightly heavy and they give him white cheese, creamy, sweet sour, mostly goat’s milk.

Those scary, serious Braavosi grey-robed assassins (he knows what they are, you don’t learn to walk like a cat if you’re a normal person), who are seemingly forbidden from eating anything with slight texture and taste (he hasn’t asked, he presumes, because they never show any emotion. He supposes if you work with the dead, you become a lot like them), will indulge with a tiny square of cheese and then swallow with this strange expression (more guilt and regret for cheese then murder, he’s sure of it). 

The chef in this kitchen, who knows a 106 ways to serve it.

His student, the girl, who can taste any cheese with her eyes closed and tell you where its from. 

The mice. The cats.

And this book he found with the history of cheeses. Its in your library, Theon informs the merchant, but the man hasn’t read most of those books. 

‘That’s why you’re here,’ the merchant is smiling at him now, none of those raised eyebrows and disapproving frowns, ‘so you can read them, and inform all of us.’

The Pentoshi are, like with their weather and food, warm with their praises too. 

‘You are now one of us,’ a man booms, ‘with no teeth too!’ 

Shockingly, he doesn’t feel ashamed or shy, because he suddenly, and very astonishingly, realises that teeth, or lineage, or history, will not give him much prestige here. 

‘No,’ says another merchant, tattoos up her arms, and five earrings on each ear, (frankly, she freaks him out), ‘he’s going to be better than us.’

Theon Greyjoy, a promising young man. A clever one. A capable teacher.

‘You’re entertaining too, where can I find someone like you?’ 

There is no one like me, he wants to reply.

Mostly, and he doesn’t know how they have come to this conclusion, from a spiel on cheeses, is that he is a good person. 

Perhaps these people are not from haughty houses, hundreds of years of royalty and leadership, with mighty armies and precise manners, but with their brazen styles and too brash exclamations, they can sometimes be quite magnanimous.

***

A life full of ironies.


	9. Chapter 9

He’s quite the philosopher now, with all this sudden knowledge he has, a lava like history, the wise air of The Hundred Year Old Targaryen, and this random edge of being somewhat right. So he supposes that life is always rather tricky. It gives you what you’ve wanted, when you’ve just decided you don’t need it anymore. Then it gives you what you’ve detested, had sworn not to step near, thought of as illogical, and suddenly, you need it.

~~

Somethings are metaphorical. 

He was quite hilarious, he knew. Back then, whenever there was some sort of gathering, or even in the army, after an awkward beginning to a conversation or a tense lilt between warning words, a night too cold, a wound too desperate, it was always his witty comments that got a relieved laugh out of everyone. He’d missed that, the popularity of being the saviour. 

You always need someone funny around, it keeps kings in favour.

He hasn’t been in those spirits for sometime, but now he’s trying to be more accepting of the entirety of Theon. When he was sitting with his motley of friends in the market, underneath a canopy, underneath the sometimes gorgeous, sometimes vicious sun, he’d said something somewhat funny.

And everyone, after their flash of surprise that the strange son of the sea could do more than speak solemn sad sentences, had laughed.

How astonishing, to make others laugh! 

Then he realises that he doesn’t need it anymore, this praise, this laughter, that it doesn’t actually make him feel the same way it once did. The realisation is rather odd, he’ll admit, but his life is like that, thunderously unusual.  
It feels somewhat morbid. 

Then, he muses, there were many times when he’d been a comic, to fit in, to make his life somehow less complicated, because he could pretend behind the mocking and teasing, that he felt as fine as any noble, and nothing really bothered him. He used to gamble his life with witty words. It was another way of survival. 

Theon has quite a few of those. He could probably write a book about it, so that all the lost souls, shackled in their terrifying lives, might find a way to walk through it without flailing too much. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need it as much as he did. It would be popular, with everyone from the Iron Isles to the Ends Of All Ends studying it.

He isn’t on complete survival mode at the moment. He has to fight it, the constant nerves demanding seclusion, begging for protection, absolute security. Sometimes, he just has to look around, and that’s enough, to know he’s far away from what made him like this. 

The new atmosphere has made him less harried, so he means all his emotions now. It's like his forgotten how to lie about his moods, as if it's impossible for any of him to act out a sequence of what he doesn’t mean, can’t feel. It has its some troubles sometimes, because there are days when he cannot comprehend waking up, focusing on any smidgen of light, is drowning in visions of horror, where nothing matters, nothing at all, and he is roaring, shouting, screaming. At least, in his head.

Those days are all true. 

At least, that means, his smiles are true too.

~~~~

Somethings are actual. 

Those friends he has, for instance. The market is a good walk away from the house, and he goes there each day, after class and reading and thinking. Those are the serious aspects of his life now. The other ones are essential and talking to Jeyne, is compulsory. Jeyne is notched together with his bones now, and it feels like his drifted off into dense forest if he doesn’t hear her voice, be completely settled that he’s tethered to the now because of it. 

He tries very much to stay attached to the now.

The walk gives him time to appreciate all of it. Normally, he’d have a horse. Well, once upon an age. He isn’t exactly royal or wealthy enough to afford even a mangy animal. His limp might trouble on the way back, but he doesn’t mind. There’s people who know him now, who yell out, ‘teacher’, as if he’s part of their world. Theon is nonchalant in his greetings, but he’s fascinated by it. 

The market is very entertaining. It's like watching one of those fancy, dramatic stories that he sometimes reads for leisure. So he watches, quietly from a tea stall with a good vantage view of all the occurrences with the most fire. There’s arguments, rapid merchandise been thrown at customers in dangerous flamboyance and always gatherings of friends in thee midst of all the cacophony. There’s a bunch of them to his left, who are rather loud in their conversations, and he presumes quite cheerful too.

It's something you have to get used to, the volume of noise that snatches Pentos like a dust cloud. There’s no boiled leather boots for forests and whispers that creep from throats, just words that are wild and overwhelming, settle arrestingly over tormented thoughts.

He is quite the tourist, but he doesn’t mind. After all, it is a port city, and thus there are crews merging with the city dwellers, so he isn’t that noticeable. The group of friends, with their fragile glasses of southern teas which seem quite startling for such rough men, are once, at a loss for a table. 

Theon’s brave. He is almost not breathing and his mind thumps out a rhythm of no, but he invites them over. Perhaps they’ll kick him off his chair, throw his tea into his face or shove him right into the ocean. 

‘Have you tried the lemon tea?’ One of the men asks, a tall thing, with stringy muscles that look like they’ve had quite a life to tell of, ‘it's good for these afternoons.’

Theon shakes his head, a bit stunned. He didn’t expect this.

‘Bring one for my friend over here!’ The man calls to the waiter, clapping Theon on the shoulder, ‘I was not sure whether to call you to our conversations before, because you’re always contemplating, and here fate has brought us together.’

‘Thanks?’ he doesn’t know what to say. He’s curious and wary of how it's supposed to be. This companionship with people. He’s had a few, and they’ve all tipped over the precipice of disaster. Also, he wonders how he’ll have to survive in this situation. He doesn’t know how else to view matters.

Maybe, this time will be different.  
Maybe better, maybe worse.

There are two women, in the group. One likes painting her face with all these marks and signs, in any colour dye she can find, and he isn’t sure if it's okay to stare or he should rather try to act like he doesn’t notice it at all. The other is one is half Dothraki, half Pentoshi. She’s pretty and mostly quiet, and likes speaking in rhymes.

No, seriously. 

The reason she’s around, is because she likes one of the sailors. He’s about her height, not tall then, and comes from Old Town. And his strong, even his ears look muscular and his nose has been broken so many times, it has this If zigzag look to it. He boasts that he’s broken more noses than they’ve broken his. He’s besotted with the lady. 

The story is, that he’s known many a woman, here and there. One day, when he came over to this harbour, a merchant was trying to cheat him out of the fox pellets that he’d travelled a troubled distance to fetch. So, because merchants are the way they are, and sometimes things like muscular ears don’t intimidate them, the guy kept shoving a finger into the sailor’s chest and shoving him. He needs the money, so he doesn’t retaliate. Now, the girl is walking along the harbour, because that’s her business, she knows what’s going to sell by whom and from who, and relates the news on. It's lucrative. She spots this highly unmannered (Theon still thinks of things like manners) meeting. She also doesn’t need the money. So she kicks the merchant behind his knee and when he falls...

This is where there is a pause in this fairy-tale.

She breaks his nose.

There are three other men. One, is a pirate, when he decided smuggling was too stressful an occupation for him. He’s the one who pirated the fox pellets from a Northern Ship when he caught them unawares (they are always been caught unawares) and then sold them to the sailor. They have respect for each others professions and choose to profit from them.

The next one has this very unsettling face. He can skip between anger and happiness in a second. Theon would be scared off him, but he isn’t, because it's what he chooses to get angry at. It's either all the worldly injustices or his tea. 

The last one, gregarious and full of tales, which he surely has to have dunked in something too spicy or too sweet, because it's impossible that they’ve all happened the way they have. He seems to like Theon the most, probably because he is as interesting as any of those fables.

They all seem to like him, which is strange and makes him wonder if he should go back into survival mode and hide in the hull of a cargo ship. He guesses it's easy to welcome a quiet person, who listens more than he talks, and is cautious in all his words, and never offends or criticises a soul. 

He can’t even hate that frazzled ancient flea ridden alley cat, even though everyone else complains about it, because he feels like the cat sometimes. 

And they don’t judge, which is probably the only reason he’s existed this long. 

The fact that surprises him the most, is that he wouldn’t have had friends like these back when he was The Heir. He didn’t need them (because he had this very amazing friend) and later, he didn’t want them. It wasn’t wrong though, natural because it's always simpler to be with people who are of your own status.

So, he thought he’d need those wealthy, royal friends back, and that Pentos had to have them too, because they would have more of an understanding, being nobles. He would be able to relax, with his people. 

Yet, he is always trying to survive around them.

Instead, it is these motley of companions who are accepting.

Lessons of given and taken. 

~~~

Somethings, are better than both, better than dreams. 

A lord’s daughter, with delicate graces and an upturned nose.

A steward’s daughter, with brown eyes, a beautiful language all of their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. I'm not quite sure if there's a path to this tale. If its snippets of Theon’s life or any more.


	10. Chapter 10

It is all a magnanimous gift for the poets. The skies are a blue of mirrors, reflections of treacherous mirth and celebrated grace. The clouds when they wilt, like the ageless autumn leaves in the North. The sun, when it swims across the green oceans, taking sweet breaths through the sylphlike waves. The air, a tornado of yellow dust and gritty words, left life in grateful chests and beasts, both minute and magnificent. Theon watches in quiet enchantment, of these seemingly simple seams and symbols. 

They matter, when you have spent years, decades, centuries, shackled in cells of stone. The darkness is absolute in a cell, all encompassing, all strangulating, an actual form of solidity. It torments out wretched screams by its wrath and then it draws forth more, before it drowns you. It is hardly given its proper due when it comes to forgetting, but he knows that it holds a torture of its own and cannot ignore how it killed him. 

It is both the end of you and of your hope.

So many ways to describe the world, poets, and they do not know of a myriad trials, which twist words into frozen submission or molten mocking. Elements of earth do not measure up to the truth, which is tangible, lived, gasped through, smashed over those meaningless metaphorical musings. 

There are two shelves in the underwater library, one for poetry that lathers everything with molasses and lavender, the other with acres of angst and despair. Sometimes, he is somewhat offended and aggrieved by both shelves. The sad ones, although he feels sorry for them, do not really know what depthless suffering means, because it is impossible to describe that sort of hardship with words. The others, because they have the impertinence of lying on a boat or field or wherever it is they roam, to order people to read of their melodious happiness. 

Perhaps he should resent these ones all the more, when they do not know anything at all. Instead, he tries to be thankful. Lyrics and limericks trick his pain into pockets he can ignore. They are good to share too. He reads them to people he picks at random, the stable-master or the kitchen maid, a guest waiting slightly too long or the solemn sailor.  
He doesn’t read them to his students, even though they could understand a semblance of the shorter ones. They do not need poetry. They see the world in a way which poets have forgotten how to describe. They believe in their pure observations. The skies are blue, and yes they are, that’s all they are. Then they turn dark at night.

Sometimes, we forget how remarkable colour is and too, the absence of it.

Poetry, understood powerfully, and differently. The forms of it, stormy to some, summery to others, rains upon a cliff, lashing soft against some rocks, strong against others, moulding them all to its own purpose. He learns that they are not only in words dripping off pages. They are in the rhythms of run and still, all manners of existence.  
Its essence is to the end of emotion. 

When the main house and its masters has finally let them be, the sun with a great goodbye, leaving fireflies and tired sighs, they gather outside, around the pond, holding various forms of supper in their hands. One night, the guard suggests that they read a passage out loud. It is a peculiar thing to ask for. Some of the men guffaw and some women roll their eyes. Perhaps the reason they do not ignore the request is because the guard is ancient, his eyebrows curl at the corners and dip over his cheekbones. The lines on his face suggest too many cruel secrets. He has been here, before the master’s father, and his father, and his father… While that might be not all that true, everyone seems to be in an odd sense of awe and fear of him.

It is what gets to most men, the threat of cowardice. Are they not brave enough to simply read?

A cauldron of nations, live behind the main house, and many read in languages he has not heard of. Some read treasured letters, rough at the edges from age, smooth at being held to the mouth and forehead. Some open books chosen by their tastes, and read at the gambled page, either smirking or frowning at the content. Some cannot read, and recite passages or tell a tale.

The words rise and fall against the heat. Some laugh and some cry.

We are never truly liars, he thinks, there’s always a clue, a whisper, a fidget, where you’d find the truth, if you know how to look and if you are concerned enough to want to. We are settled and comfortable with the liars we keep company with, lest their truth disrupt our lives. 

And it is a principle he wants everyone to hold onto. After all, they do not know his truth. He wonders if they’ll curl away from him, in contempt or some to step up to hit him on the jaw, and sneer as it cracks. It will not matter of age or slightness; no one will allow him to sit in a gathering like this again. After all, any land or people, a turncloak is despised everywhere.

He will tell them that he was forced into it, was utterly mistaken, is desperately regretful and has paid for it a hundred times over. Perhaps they will believe him, but how long does mercy take to come? 

So, he listens and does not ask. They have all learnt to respect that.

He marks out selected, special poetry for Jeyne. She matches the pretty ones, scribed by princesses or men rambling through days of nonchalance in maybe somewhere like High-garden (he hasn’t been, the name suggests a place for that kind of poetry though) and too, the poems of strength. Her life had begun wrapped with ribbons and then the ribbons were torn through streams of rocks, along with her skin, the thin scars of lashes on her shoulders. So he reads to her poems constructed of stones, to later recite the words like a song, to keep away those nightmares which fringe her days.

She reads to him too. Her accent is so forcefully Northern, so darkly, like the thick, cold mists which never leave the lowest branches, and smother you when you step into the forests. You breathe it through your being, as it catches you, ensnares, in all you are, you are of the North. 

When he listens to her, after one, two, three phrases, he does not hear the words. He is back there, on the edges of that seemingly infinite realm of trees, elk and wolves. There is no law to it, there are no men within it, there is just it. He has his bow and arrow across his shoulders, and they are alive, speaking to him, a language which all his bones respond to. The snow crunches with his first step of hesitation, at the end of the taunts of the world and the beginnings of the secrets of the woods. 

Then the mist has him, and he is Theon Greyjoy again, boots in the dance of a hunter, a step in front of the other, unheard to the furred creatures, brazen and brave in his head. 

‘Are you listening?’ Jeyne nudges him. He squints at her for a second. She isn’t quite the complete Northerner anymore. Her hair is lighter, skin brushed with sun, words tipsy with Pentoshi and countenance that much freer, cheerier, louder. It’s a bit like a poem, for some reason.

‘Sorry,’ he replies. 

‘I….’

‘Like you?’ he fills in, hopefully.

‘No,’ she glares at him.

He doesn’t think she means it that harshly or gravely, but it reminds him of trust. Likeability is strung from it and nothing can absolve you of buried pledges, no matter what the poets say.

~~

The solemn sailor is a gangly boy who sits at the docks, legs swinging above the remnants of the hour’s tide. He’s a deckhand, which is hard work, rippling limbs in motion across the ropes and sails. After that, he does not join the other sailors at their leisure, instead staring into the seas, looking for something, reaching far away, all alone. 

The boy is from White Harbour. They catch onto each others’ accents with sudden, disruptive questions, the excitement of belonging and remembrance. Theon used to think that The North was frozen in time, because nothing ever, ever happened there, at least when he was a child. Now, this boy has so much news, it leaves him wondering if the entire frigid wasteland has begun to tick or this sailor is making it all up. He isn’t sure if he’s missing it or is reminiscing rather.

‘What of Winterfell?’ 

He has not asked a soul about this before. He feels his heart has fallen into his hands, blood swollen into his shirt, vision blanked out disastrously.

‘I know who you are,’ the boy responds, quietly.

Theon wants to get up and run. The life he has here, a bauble hanging off desperate dreams. One which no one from across the Narrow Sea is allowed to yank from him and knife into cold cuts of hurt. It is something he has never owned before. He does not want them to take it. Alas, he cannot move.

‘I will…’ he wants to end, push you into the sea. He has to protect himself and Jeyne. He contemplates it for a moment, but knows it is the wrong thing to do. He doesn’t do wrong things anymore. Besides, the boy would probably have him in the sea before he could push him. He might be getting stronger but he still does not have enough muscle to wrangle a sailor.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,’ the boy shrugs. 

‘Why won’t you?’ 

The North Remembers. They have been taught that. They survive the winters by that doctrine.

‘Revenge tore our world apart. I prefer redemption,’ he answers, rather wisely.

Theon wonders if forgiveness is as worthy as remembrance.

~~

‘I trust you,’ Jeyne says.

The poets should know that there are more precious gifts than love.


	11. Chapter 11

The way humans effortlessly merge into new lands. The way they become it, like a weave, the twist of beginning. The way they are finally it, like forgotten roots, the ending. 

~~

Theon is adaptable, an ever changing survivor, a quick learner, and has always been curiously attuned to the nuances of what is truly needed. So, he notices that the merchant returns home late, leaving his children forlorn and wife, miffed. The household distances from its master and it leaves a current of sad unsettlement throughout it. Theon knows what happens when the home of a lord is left unsteady, it all gets corrupted, and empires, large or small, drip into death.

The man is in a rush of ambition and time crashes over him in an unforgiving tide. His fleet grows like wild fire, the wealth to influence the marches of armies. Soon, they will be ready to scar the land across the Narrow Sea, so that the crumbling old houses would become another history lesson that Theon will have to teach his students.  
He does not bother with that yet. He has another purpose, slight though it might be.

After he realises there will be no impending doom if he steps out of the courtyard, he takes to walking on the docks, and is still enough of the stealthy hunter to not be kicked in the shins by a cantankerous captain. The air here is an equation of sly salt, taut with a mesh of language, loud with gregarious attitude, valuable with competitive hulls knocking against each other, and each breath of it, revives him. 

Now, he is a learner of life.

It makes him, once again, into a person. Only this time, he feels better about it, about himself, in a way that he never had before, as if those insecurities that had held him slightly, but still so significantly, of definite mistrust. Once, before he came upon this new universe of infinite newness, he thought that his only fortunate credential was being an archer. Now he sees that he had always hidden a personality behind an irrelevant, uncouth comedy, one both of confidence and cleverness. 

So, he approaches the merchant. It is a tentative moment, an insufficient breath, a life full of unheard speeches. His quest is of a mere task, perhaps insignificant in the acres of employment that is held by this man. It is his own bridge of ambition, which he wants to try and cross. He has been over thinking it, deciding how many ways it could go wrong and how many things he lacks. 

‘Sir,’ he enquires, then deciding he cannot let his nervousness handle anymore pleasantries, ‘would you let me assist you in gathering required information from your fleet?’  
The man, although he tries to hide his surprise, takes a second to stare at him. 

‘I have a legion of influential men beneath me for that task, why would I give you that honour?’ 

Theon thinks that legion is a word for battle, and it isn’t something to be used when it comes to ships not of warfare. 

‘You can trust me,’ he answers. 

A word; once so corrupted when attached to his name. A word; now so insanely true. 

The problem the merchant has is that the legion beneath him will use the information against him. They will bet and buy, before the actual deal is made with the owner of the treasures. Theon has no need to do perform such unscrupulous actions. The task of relaying and collecting information is one he can do without any perfidious trickery.

And that is valuable commodity in a whirlwind trade.

‘If I didn't trust you,’ the man says, ‘I would not have let you teach my children. So, you’ve been hired as a member of my order. And Theon,’ he pauses, holding back from a handshake or a pat on the shoulder, because he knows how skittish Theon is around any contact, ‘well done.’

Theon feels freedom swimming through his veins. He feels gratefulness, wrapping itself around his shoulders, warming them, inside and out. He feels, for the first time since his release from those shackles of persecution, that he might want to live. 

He decides, cautiously, upon what his intention is for this course of future. Perhaps there’s a myriad reasons behind it. It’s for Jeyne, because he wants to show her that he can be courageous, is trying to be as worthy as any other man. It’s for Robb and Bran, back at home, alight in all his memories, because he owes it to them to breathe. It’s for the merchant, because he saw something in the Greyjoy Turncloak when no one else, especially not Theon, had any semblance of reconciliation. It is for his students, who deserve a teacher who speaks about life as if it is a gift and not a curse.

It is for Pentos. 

~~

They set out at dawn. He is given a dagger, a glimmering one, half the length of a sword, that hangs from his belt, cutting shine with all the heat of the sun, waiting to bleed. It intimidates him, to be honest. He isn’t so sure he can wield it the way it’s meant to be honoured, but it does show a defiant cruel spirit. He is introduced to captains, who might glance at him in that suspicious way at any other day, not sure whether to befriend him or be bewitched, and now look at him with a cool gaze of wariness.

So, he gathers information from ship after ship, scribing it down, a long litany of sailor and stash. The wares are of gold links to hang around the delicate neck of a lover, of silver coins that spill from barrels like sea foam, of rings dancing with rubies, a gorgeous show of prominence. There are the silks, with their dyes; dusk, midnight, molten. The scents of spice, -it sinks into wood, tattooed skins, bragging sails and Theon’s ledger- frankincense, cinnamon and saffron, saffron, saffron. 

The North will drown in all of this. He’s still dressed in black, effortlessly, endlessly pale, holding his shoulders harsh and tight, as if he’s perpetually freezing. Yet, here he is, inspecting the intricacies of colourful luxury. He cries and laughs at it all, an intermingling new being born of yesterday and tomorrow.

The merchant is informed of everything. He leaves nothing out, a suspicion of piracy (well, that’s sub-piracy because generally, trade here seems to be a jargon of the legal and its dark counterpart), an abusive captain, too much perverse leisure and men who do not work hard enough. He tries to give exact times and exact measures, because if he does, there’s chance that between the crew and the inspectors, that any thievery will be caught out. 

They try. They fail. No one can bribe him.

They don’t understand that Theon has seen awards and that he does not deem them great enough for a few quarters. It is a mock of before, really, where he wanted the title, before seeing it didn't give him righteousness. Any sort of righteousness. It isn’t only in manners or allegiance, it’s in the dreams you have. You cannot be on what is not good. At least, that’s how he has chosen to repent. 

At the manor, the merchant tells him that he is saving money and he has, more seriously, minutes more. So, it seems righteousness lends a warm reward.

The ships are of a neat size, slight enough to escape, and so they are easier to inspect. Still, it is busy work. So, Theon is assigned a team. He chooses the Northern youth, because the boy is more intent on pursuing his profession of becoming a philosopher. Theon has asked him if he wants to earn enough to go to Old Town, where those of knowledge glide through dim, magic stoned passageways. They always glide, maybe it’s the robes or the attitude or all those books that have filled their heads so heavily, they cannot lift their feet. Perhaps, the boy wonders, but do they know the knowledge of the sea? Of the way men plead in brilliant storms? Have they seen love so absolute, it sweeps sands over history? Do they know of women, as cautious as the moon and as all encompassing as the sun? Will they understand what it is to almost die, and then be given life?  
Theon isn’t sure. He tells the youth that the books which hold court in castles are all more of the physicality of everything ever. Sure, there’s poetry. He can share some of these pieces, although poetry has, he has often decided, a sneaky way of asking more than answering.

The youth seems to think that Theon is a wise wizard. Theon hardly knows how to respond to this theory and tells the boy that he is yards wiser than he will ever be. The boy, although with an aptitude towards seriousness, can sometimes be impressed by the most casual of comments.

The merchant chooses a colossal wrestler turned protector, who presented his skills to Theon, by merrily swinging up two corpulent captains and throwing them overboard.  
Theon isn’t sure who was more shocked.

The ship he has taken his life-changing voyage upon, that safety swell upon the waves, docks every third month. He has taken to welcoming the crew, as if he is, crazily, now one of the people instead of the foreigners. Then, they would speak to him as if he was a specimen, shattered into fragments that cannot hold conversation or avoid him all together, side glances that hold raised eyebrows at this…object. He isn't that youth anymore, as thin as a leaf, wilting in sunshine and storm.

‘You’re man of standing,’ they look at him wondrously, because the change is emotional, enormous, and almost unbelievable if you’d known Theon on the voyage over. 

Indeed. Well, sort of. It makes him laugh.


	12. Chapter 12

It’s his name day and they have surprised him with a celebration.

Three of the hosts are of small stature and are his favourite people. The forth one he loves, he just hasn’t told her yet. They have laid a table on the grass. There’s cheese, bread and fruit. Most of the cherries have been eaten, tiny red fingerprints on the culprit’s tunic. 

‘The party is my present. Do you like it?’ the little boy asks excitedly, as if he’s thrown a feast. He’s gotten so used to Theon, he greets him with hugs. Theon is so used to it that he returns them as if it’s entirely natural. There are cherry marks all over his shirt now and he really should care more.

He thinks of past name days. There were some that were lavish. The hall filled with gregarious company. The whoops and cheers that echoed when he stepped in. He isn’t sure if they have name days on the Isles. He’s missed a few because there are no hours in prison. So this one might be peculiar and rather small but considering all of them, it is one of the nicest. 

‘Yes,’ he mumbles, trying not to cry.

‘Sit down,’ Jeyne nudges him, sort of rolling her eyes, mostly smiling. 

‘I’ve got a present for you,’ the girl student is hiding her hands behind her back. Theon already knows what it is and he sighs. Since they’ve all been so kind, the least he can do is accept it graciously. As soon as he sits down, the girl is twisting flowers through his hair.

‘You’ve got better hair than a princess,’ she says, ‘so I’m making you a flower crown.’ 

‘You’re still royalty to some people,’ Jeyne grins, conspiratorially helping the disciple. 

‘The royal experiment,’ he shakes his head and the girl thwacks his shoulder. 

‘Be still,’ she says sternly, ‘I’m almost done.’ He knows out of experience that this is not true. This crown is light to bear though, so he’ll obey. 

‘I’ve got something for you,’ the older boy speaks, putting his hand over Theon’s eyes ‘I hope you’ll like it.’

He sounds unsure and Theon wants to tell him that you’re six years old, of course I will. That he’s already thankful. He can’t believe they actually think well enough of him to give him a party, let alone gifts. He is proud of them. It seems he is somewhat of an able teacher. 

‘You have to keep your eyes closed,’ the boy informs him warningly, ‘because I’ll be nervous otherwise.’ It seems like a curious present. After a moment, the kid takes a deep breath and starts reading. 

It’s in the language of Winterfell. Theon takes a few seconds to realise that it’s a book of the North. It’s a well known children’s book over there, of wolves and winter. Years ago he read it to Rickon. There’s a fire and the adults are chatting. Sometimes he feels adrift. He doesn’t want to chat and neither does he want to leave. Rickon walks around sleepily, looking for someone to read the book to him. Theon decides he might as well. Rickon happily throws it at him. It’s old and the pages are sticky and crumpled. 

He knows it by heart. Rickon is asleep by the third page. 

Now the careful words have a lilt edged with salt and sunlight. It brings him back.

‘You can open your eyes,’ the boy tells him, ‘I thought you’d want to remember something from home. You have to miss them.’

Theon could cry, cry for hours but children do not think that weeping is gratefulness. Truthfully, it’s a good gift. There were many sweet memories. He wants to treasure them all.

‘Come here’ he calls and the kid does, hugging him the way his brothers once would.

‘You’re breaking the crown,’ the sister pulls tightly at his hair, which is something he’s sure she’s learnt from smirking Jeyne. Theon murmurs an apology to her. It’s going to take hours to get all these tiny, crazy braids out of his hair. Maybe he should cut it. It is really silky though. It isn’t vanity, even though Jeyne snorts when he denies it, it’s more like being appreciative of what you’ve been blessed with. 

‘I have something for you too,’ Jeyne says. She laughs and it’s so good to see her laugh. He wants to tell her that is the best present. Once, I never thought you’d smile again. I thought that if I blinked, you’d be dead. I’d have to carry your icy cold broken skinned skeleton down the steps. 

She hands him something wrapped in a huge cloth. Most of it is empty. He gives her a withering look, which she obviously finds funny. Finally, at the centre, is the top of an orange. There are millions of oranges here and why would she give him one? He’s going to try and say thank you sincerely, when he takes all the cloth away and sees that it’s a giant orange. It’s really huge, it’s crazily big. How did it possibly grow like that?

‘It’s imported,’ she says shyly.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. He’d like to kiss her. He’s afraid of how she might respond, if she’d hit him or pull away. He doesn’t deserve her and he doesn’t know what he’d do if she’d hate him. It’s better to stay friends. It’s even better to be more than that but he does not know how to get there. 

Theon takes the orange and peels it. He can live of oranges. Citrus and air is one here. The whole city is scented by it. It’s a virtuous fruit and he always has one wherever he goes. It’s travel friendly and life giving, that’s what he tells the foreigners. He shares it between the five of them and they all agree that it is the best orange of all time. 

~~

Later that day, the party has dispersed and Theon sits with his flower crown and a book that he got from one of the ships. It seems that the merchant knows it is his name day because he interrupts him. Theon thinks that no one should be interrupted while reading and there has to be a good reason for this or else there will be happenings later on which cannot be explained.

‘Yes sir,’ he stands up.

‘I won’t keep you,’ the man seems amused and Theon tries to get his expression into one less miffed, ‘I have a gift for you.’

‘Me?’ The fact that this man thinks of him beyond anything work related unnerves him. 

‘I had you followed,’ he informs him smoothly, as if it’s something you’re supposed to accept and Theon should decide if it’s in his better interest to be safe or rather think he’s being spied on, ‘and that is how we found this.’ 

He gestures towards a large, rectangular box. Theon already knows what it is. He kneels down, opening it, precious fingers reaching around the glorious wood, the singing string, the perfect curve. 

He notches in an arrow and draws.

_His muscles are water, flowing through rocks and rivers, swift. His soul is alive, beyond, a conqueror._

He feels forgiven. 

~~

He likes his home. It’s the only place he’s ever felt like he can just be. He hangs up his bow and arrow next to his coat and takes off his boots. He looks at it for a second, nudges everything into its exact place and then is satisfied that it’s neat enough for the night. Jeyne calls him pernickety. It looks better when it’s tidy that’s all and it makes you feel more settled. She doesn’t seem to agree with him. She throws her coat over a chair, on the bed or over the door. Her boots are never paired together. They always drift apart. Apparently her hat hides wings, because she can never find it.

At least it makes for interesting mornings.

She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed. Her hair is autumn. It’s static and bright and magical. 

‘Come,’ she says, waving the hairbrush at him. He sits in front of her and closes his eyes. It’s so normal and nice, that it makes him want to live longer. Slowly, gently, she unravels each braid and the flowers fall all over the pillows. They have quite a few pillows. Jeyne likes to embroider her story all over them. 

‘Theon?’

‘Hmm?’ he’s half asleep, head on her knee. His hair is free and she runs her fingers through it. It’s the most wonderful part of his day or rather, his life.

‘If I…’ she stills and he opens his eyes, looks up at her.

‘Jeyne?’

‘Is it alright if I kiss you? I mean, would you mind? Could I?’

He has so much to say. He has to start breathing again to say it though. 

Then she kisses him on his cheek. He’s stunned for a second. She kisses him on the cheek all the time. Why would she ask him? She kisses him again and again and again. They are all over his cheeks. Tiny soft rain kisses. 

‘Upside down?’ he asks.

Her kiss is the salt of storms and the secrets of seas. Her mouth is sugar in winter and a mystery at dawn. Her heart is a cocoon of miracles and the legends of dreams. 

‘You taste of oranges,’ she smiles ‘it’s lovely.’

‘I love you,’ he tells her.

‘You do?’

‘You remember the long cold night that we thought we wouldn’t live through? There was one hour where the sky was only stars, trillions of them. I love you more than all of those.’

‘Oh,’ Jeyne says and she’s crying and he kisses her tears away, all of them forever, ‘I love you too.’

~~

Theon’s name is his own gift.


End file.
